How Ina Garten became the butter-loving, Jeffrey-feeding queen of food that tastes "better than you remember."

In 1978, a White House nuclear policy analyst left her position to buy a little specialty food shop in the Hamptons called The Barefoot Contessa. With no professional food experience at all (aside from years of hosting dinner parties), Ina Garten grew the store from a small takeout shop to an East Hampton destination for celebrities and vacationing gourmands. Her first cookbook, published in 1999, sold more than 100,000 copies in its first year. Garten’s Food Network show went on to win several Emmys, and in 2014 Garten won a James Beard Award for Outstanding Personality/Host. The Barefoot Contessa series now has more than 10 million cookbooks in print. Here, Garten shares how it all started.

I originally had a specialty food store. At some point, after 18 years, I decided it was time to do something new. I sold the store to two of my employees and sat upstairs for months without anything to do. One day, my husband left to drive to Yale [where he teaches] and said, “What are you going to do this week?” And I said, “Nothing! On Wednesday I have a manicure!” He said, “You love the food world…” Well, it took me two days to write the book proposal and write up some recipes. I cut out pictures and put together a [mood] board. If I was going to write a cookbook, I wanted it to be a cookbook that I'd want to have. I wanted it to be a gift and something you'd use. I’d want you to look at the photo and say, "That's delicious."

I knew one person who was an editor, so I sent the proposal to him…and he accepted it! In one week. They sent me an advance and I put it right in the bank because I thought I'd have to return it.

My editor took me to Jean-Georges' restaurant Vong to discuss the book—I felt like a country mouse going to the city. I said the first thing that I had to do was to find someone to write this…and he said, "Yes—that’s you!" It took me more than two years to write it. One year to test the recipes (I came from specialty food and had to cut down the recipes to work for six [servings]) and one year to photograph and design it. I wanted a book with 75 recipes, because if you buy a book with 350 recipes and only use two of them, it feels like you’ve wasted your money.

Early drafts of recipes for The Barefoot Contessa Cookbook

For that first book, I made every recipe a few times. Now I have an assistant and I watch her make it. It’s so I know how someone at home is going to use the recipe. I think I have gotten more rigorous—do you slice straight or on an angle? In every recipe I find some detail or a question [to clarify]. I also take people to the grocery store to learn how they shop. I mean, welcome to the olive oil aisle! My entire process has become much more rigorous.

Things I like best are remembered flavors—but better than you ever remembered. Something we remember but so much more delicious. I’m not one for following trends at all. I like old-fashioned recipes and am inspired by everything.

I always wanted to cook with my mom, but she would say, "It's your job to study and my job to cook." Well I got married when I was 20 and went out and bought Craig Claiborne’s New York Times Cookbook. Then Jeffrey took me camping for four months. We started in France, then went through England, Scotland, Normandy, Brittany, and Provence, Italy, then Switzerland and back to France.

In France, we pulled into a campsite and I was offered coq au vin. It was the simplest and most delicious thing I’d ever had. I came home from that trip and bought Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I taught myself how to cook—it was really unlikely! It really influenced the rest of my life.